A plate brick to the SV apparatus has so far been replaced manually. However, as known to a person skilled in the art, a cartridge system SV apparatus is becoming generalized these days, in which a housing (hereinafter referred to as cartridge) storing a plate brick in advance is used to form an assembly, and said cartridge assembly in entirety is replaced to the SV apparatus.
A cartridge assembly storing a brick is 30 to 100 kg in its total weight, so that it is heavy work to manually replace said assembly. On the other hand, as the means of mechanically handling a cartridge assembly there may be a system where the cartridge assembly is clamped by using an arm mechanism or a sytem where a vacuum adsorbing mechanism is used. However, is many occasions a plate brick to the SV apparatus in replaced usually in the vertical form of the SV apparatus i.e. in the form where a molten metal vessel is vertically reversed, and the cartridge system SV apparatus has the undermentioned problems in particular. Thus, it will be evident that in the systems of employing the arm mechanism and the vacuum adsorbing mechanism it is impossible to replace the cartridge assembly.
(a) Since a surface pressure is applied to the plate brick after the cartridge assembly has been conveyed to the SV apparatus it is necessary to press-in the plate brick to a predetermined position of the SV apparatus. PA1 (b) Even in the case in which a new replacement cartridge assembly is inserted into the SV apparatus or a used cartridge assembly is taken out from said apparatus it is required to position the cartridge assembly and the handling device (such as hands of robot apparatus). PA1 (c) In order that the plate brick of the SV apparatus is connected to a power source for sliding the plate brick, it is necessary to mechanically connect the cartridge assembly to the SV apparatus.